


you've got my heart and i've got your soul (but are we better off alone?)

by DiscoCritic



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Comic)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Not RPF, Party Poison (Danger Days) Is A Dick, The Fabulous Killjoys (Danger Days) Are Not MCR
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:42:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26493574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiscoCritic/pseuds/DiscoCritic
Summary: Fun Ghoul manages to lose the only person he’s loved more than anything else in a single night.
Relationships: Fun Ghoul/Party Poison (Danger Days)
Comments: 19
Kudos: 55





	you've got my heart and i've got your soul (but are we better off alone?)

**Author's Note:**

> this is so sad alexa play despacito

Fun Ghoul manages to lose the only person he’s loved more than anything else in a single night. 

They’re lying in bed together when it starts. Well, not even “together,” per se. The night is cold, but Poison’s still far on the other side of the mattress, not close enough for Ghoul to grab and cuddle the warmth into like he usually does. Like he’s done every time he’s felt a chill in the air since they got together eleven months ago. 

He can’t believe it’s been almost a year. But then again, after all this time, he should’ve been expecting something like this to happen. He’s never lasted this long in a relationship, and this one, fragile as it was, was bound to go up in flames sometime.

Doesn’t mean its ending ain’t gonna hurt like hell. 

It’s almost funny the way they’re positioned right now, like a fighting couple with their backs to each other in one of those old black-and-white movies you could get illegally on DVD in the city. Those were the kind of movies they never showed in theaters, though, because a Battery City couple was always happy and always Kept Smiling. Just like a perfect couple should, right? 

He and Poison aren’t like that. Maybe that’s why they’re fighting. 

Ghoul’s frozen on the right side, the one he claimed the very first time he and Poison ever shared a bed, and Poison’s on the left. There’s a gap of heartache in the middle of the mattress, and Ghoul doesn’t want to be the one to breach it. 

He doesn’t know what sparked all of this. He doesn’t even know what could’ve made Poison _mad_. All Ghoul knows is that earlier, when he walked up from behind and wrapped his arms around Poison’s waist, his boyfriend swatted him away and not at all playfully. And then later, when Ghoul tried to kiss him in the hallway of the diner as they passed each other, Poison looked the other direction and didn’t even stop walking.

Right now, as Ghoul lies with his head on his arm and drowning in his thoughts, time is stretching long, syrupy, and sickly sweet. There’s a python in his chest that wants nothing more than to squeeze the life out of his heart. He knows that the rest of his night will be spent staring into nothingness if the two of them don’t talk to each other, so before the suspense can build enough to kill him, he turns over, slides into the empty space, and gently rubs the top of Poison’s shoulder. 

“Love you, baby,” he says gently, testing the waters. It’s simple. It’s an offering. It’s a plea. 

Poison doesn’t answer, just sucks in air through his teeth before he looks over his shoulder at Ghoul. Ghoul’s heart turns to lead and drops into his stomach. Poison’s never ignored an “I love you.” Never. No matter how pissed off he is, he always manages to swallow his spite and conjure up a matching one. 

But not this time. 

Ghoul retreats back to the far side of the bed as Poison flips over. It’s only dark enough to see the outline of his face when they make eye contact through the blackness; regardless, Ghoul knows in the very depths of his soul that he could reach out a fingertip and trace the whole of Poison’s face. Hours spent gazing at Poison, wondering how Ghoul got lucky enough to fall in love with a person so handsome, granted him the locations of every freckle, every sharp edge, every line, and every curve on his face. He could sketch everything from his forehead down to his jaw and not miss a single detail.

He doesn’t try. 

The tension builds as they stare at each other until Poison is brave enough to pierce the silence, but the blood rushing through Ghoul’s head is almost too distracting. It’s a sick kind of anticipation, this waiting he’s doing to find out what Poison’ll say. It turns his stomach sour and leaves his lungs gasping for more air. 

“I don’t know if this is working out for us anymore.” 

Those words hurtle through the air and knock the wind right out of his lungs. The ability to breathe really _does_ leave him for a brief few moments while he tries to figure out what Poison is talking about. 

It just came out of nowhere. It was a landmine. Boom. You make one wrong step and you’re dead. That’s how he feels right now. 

“What do you mean?” he whispers, hating the way his heart is fluttering like he’s about to lose it all. It’s a dream, it’s a dream, it’s a dream. It’s gotta be. He’s gonna wake up right now. It’s a dream.

“I don’t think we’re supposed to be together,” Poison says quietly. 

But he doesn’t wake up, because it’s not a dream. There’s too many little details for this to be a dream, evident in the chill of the air and the chill in Poison’s words. Ghoul wouldn’t feel this _broken_ if it was just a dream. 

“Did I... did I do something?” he stammers, and now he’s just praying his voice won’t betray him and give away just how hard he’s trying to keep it together. 

He can’t show just how much it hurts. His reasoning is that if he steels himself, if he forces a mask of nonchalance to cover the ache, Poison won’t be able to wound him any more than he already has. He may have stabbed him once, but Ghoul won’t let the blade plunge in for a second time. 

Poison shakes his head the slightest bit, and Ghoul feels fragile inside. “It’s not you. It’s not me. It’s just... us.”

Now he can only hope the dark is hiding the wetness on his face. 

He _should’ve_ expected this; he knew Poison wouldn’t be able to put up with him forever, but he didn’t think it would be so _soon_. 

Because it’s only been eleven months, and already, Fun Ghoul isn’t enough for Party Poison. 

“What did I _do_? I can fix it, please, I swear, just tell me and I’ll fix it. I’ll do anything.” 

“You can’t fix this.” 

That’s it. There goes his heart. It crumbles right then and there, a falling building crashing towards the dust, the suffocating smoke billowing around him and choking him to the point of near-asphyxiation until his eyes are streaming, and not just from the tears. One suppressed sob makes its way out of his throat before he can force it down and he knows Poison can hear it in the quiet of the room, but no reaction comes. 

Oh, how quickly things can change. Poison always thumbs the tears from his face and holds him close if he’s crying. But now he’s pretending like he doesn’t even notice. 

One word is all Ghoul manages to respond with. _“Why?”_ he asks, and he hates how much his lip is quivering. He clenches his jaw to try and make it stop but that doesn’t help at all. 

Poison answers slowly, pausing between every few words like he’s not sure how to phrase it, but the message comes across loud and clear. “I don’t... feel the same way about us. Not anymore.” 

Ghoul never thought two sentences could hurt harder than a bullet in the chest, but they do. Much more. And he would know.

He’d rather take a _hundred_ bullets to the chest than have to hear this. 

“But _I_ still love you, Poison,” he whispers, and his voice is trembling. He knows that if he tried to stand his knees would be weak and not in a good way. 

And Poison, who’s nothing more than a silhouette with blurry, black-stained edges that fade into the rest of the room, does not answer him. 

So Ghoul’s lying there, thinking of all the things they’ve done together, all the times they’ve had together, and wondering if any of it ever actually meant anything to Poison. All the times Ghoul’s told him things that he wouldn’t trust another soul to know, all the times he’s cried a wet patch into the cotton of his shirt, all the times he’s reached over for a hand to hold and found Poison’s already on its way to meet with his, all the times no words would be needed to tell each other everything they wanted to say.

Maybe the hardest part is that nothing Poison described is ringing true for him. As much as it hurts to realize, he’s still madly in love with him. The little things still catch him off guard, like the way the sun catches his eyes and turns the brown flecks to honey, or the way he lets out a quiet little sigh when he’s happy. No matter if Ghoul’s looked at Poison a billion times in a single day, his heart will always skip a beat when they make eye contact. 

He has to stop thinking about it. The more he does, the more it solidifies the pang in what’s left of Ghoul’s disintegrating heart. 

He never realized how much casual physical contact he usually has with Poison every night until now. He’s almost always lying right up against him, resting his head on his shoulder, or at the very least his leg is touching Poison’s. The current absence of any touch at _all_ drags a heavy type of loneliness into his chest that he almost can’t bear. 

Usually, they’d sleep with nothing but the thin fabric of a t-shirt between them, this impenetrable divide they’ve fallen victim to being nowhere in sight. No, Ghoul would nestle close against Poison’s back, curl his body into the slight curve of Poison’s, and they’d lay like that until one of them would untangle themselves in sleep. And sometimes, when he needed to be even closer, he would rest his chin on Poison’s shoulder and let his arm fall gently over Poison’s stomach. 

But now there’s a space big enough to fit an entire additional person between them, and he hates it more than he’s ever hated anything else. 

“Look,” Poison breathes, startling Ghoul out of the cycle of dread he’s trapped in, “I’ve thought about it a lot. And I think we need to take a break.” 

A break is bad, but Ghoul’s going through the five stages of grief at record speed and is almost ready to accept it, because _‘a break’_ isn’t forever. It’s just a step back for a while, and though that is gonna hurt like a bitch in more ways than one, he might be able to get through it. 

And then Poison adds a word that shatters everything Ghoul just managed to justify with himself. “Permanently.” 

A break in one sense of the word isn’t permanent. So another definition of “break” comes to Ghoul’s mind; the one that means “to shatter.” To snap apart the bond they’ve tied over the past eleven months like it was nothing and go their own separate ways. Forever. 

Now he really can’t hold back any more tears, no matter how hard he tries. He tries to stay quiet, tries to hide how much this is utterly _destroying_ him, but every time he inhales, out comes a sick little hiccuping gasp that he can’t choke back down. 

Across the bed, Poison doesn’t even fucking care. If Ghoul could see his face, he’d bet he’s not even upset about it. He never shows any of his goddamn emotions and maybe, _maybe_ that’s because he doesn’t even fucking have any. 

“Look,” Poison says, “I think it’s what’s best for me, for you. For us.” 

_Or maybe just for you,_ Ghoul thinks bitterly through the tears. He doesn’t say that part. 

He does ask something, though, something that he’s gotta know. Not knowing is even worse than getting an answer he can’t stomach, because if he _doesn’t_ ask, then he’ll never know what went wrong and be left to wonder for the rest of eternity. “Why now, Poison? Why _now_? What _happened_?” 

If Poison hears the tears choking his words—which Ghoul _knows_ he does—he doesn’t react. When he’s angry or upset, he tends to stiffen, tends to withdraw any sign of emotion and leaves only a hard, cold mask in place. Ghoul, on the other hand, ignites at the slightest change of mood for better or worse, and right now he’s a flaming ball of tears and sorrow. 

Poison runs his hand back through his hair, the hair that Ghoul always liked to play with. He could spend hours smoothing it down, twining it around his fingers, brushing it as gently as he could until Poison fell asleep right there in his lap. 

It hits Ghoul that if they’re breaking up, which they _are_ , that’ll never happen again. 

“I guess,” Poison starts, then pauses for a minute. Every pounding beat of Ghoul’s heart is a timer waiting for him to finish before the alarm goes off. “When I... when I look at you, I don’t feel what I did before. It’s not... love. I don’t feel anything special anymore. Not like before, you know?” 

No, Ghoul _doesn’t_ know, because here’s the truth: he’s still hopelessly head-over-heels in love with Poison. He loves every inch of him, he loves him on the good days and on the bad, he loves him in the early morning and in the middle of the night, he loves him every day of the week and every moment in time, he loves him no matter what he looks like or what he thinks about himself. He loves him so much that being asked if he _gets it_ , that having it assumed that he can somehow _relate_ , is like having his insides ripped out in fistfuls while he writhes on the ground and begs for it to be over. 

Until now he never understood how in old stories people would rather die than be without their lovers. But now that he’s having to face it, death would be a welcome alternate. 

But he doesn’t know how to express any of that and honestly doesn’t trust himself to say more than a few words without completely _losing_ it, so he just forces out what he can before his voice starts quivering so bad he can’t speak. 

“Don’t leave me, Poison, please. Please don’t leave me.” More tears run down his cheeks and soak his pillow where he’s got his head resting against it, and his knuckles start to burn from how tight he’s holding the edge of a blanket in his hand. “I need you.” 

Poison sits up suddenly and puts his head in his hands. “I can’t. I can’t do this anymore with you.” 

Ghoul feels his entire life slipping away. “Poison, please, baby, please, just—”

“God. That’s a part of it, actually. You’re so fucking needy sometimes. Just stop talking for a minute, dammit!” 

The harshness shocks Ghoul into shutting up his begging, but he can’t stop the pitiful little noises coming from his throat. He knows he sounds like a wounded coyote, a pained thing whimpering on the side of the road, and he hates it almost as much as he hates himself right now, but he can’t help it. Poison is his entire world, in a sorry way, and losing him would be like losing half of his heart. 

Maybe this was what was meant to happen. Maybe they were meant to share hearts, souls, life, love, and then go their own separate ways. Maybe they’re just better off without the other. 

Maybe that’s what Poison believes. But to Ghoul, it feels like someone just told him to try living without oxygen. _Poison_ is what he breathes for these days. He’s the one that Ghoul thinks of when he’s desperately trying to keep himself in one piece. If the two of them aren’t together, he may as well be ripped in half. 

But Poison doesn’t seem to be sharing the same reservations, because he’s already got his legs swung over the side of the bed. “Listen,” he says when he’s managed to level his voice, “It’s just not meant to be. We’re not supposed to be together. But don’t take it personally.” 

How can Ghoul _not_ take it personally? Does Poison just not care? Does all the time they’ve ever spent together, everything they’ve ever felt together, everything they’ve ever _lived through_ together not mean anything? 

This. Is. His. Worst. Nightmare. 

Poison mistakes his silence for agreement. “Look,” he says, turning towards Ghoul. Ghoul looks down. “I’m not in love with you anymore. But I think if you still want to have some sort of a relationship, we can... we can do that. As crewmates.” 

Ghoul just looks at him. If he wasn’t trying so hard to silence his crying, his mouth would have dropped open long ago in shock and disbelief and _anger._ A red hot kind of anger that fizzles out just before it reaches its peak and instead dissolves into a brittle type of sadness. 

When Poison rises, the bed creaks softly as if it’s already mourning the loss of his body. When he steps across the floor and over the piles of shoes and clothes and batteries and papers littering the ground, Ghoul’s sitting up, calling after him, begging him to stay. 

“Baby,” he says, not even knowing why he’s pleading when it’s already clear no words will remedy this, “I love you. Please come back. Poison, please, angel, don’t leave me, I love you, I love you s—” 

Poison doesn’t turn around once. He walks out and pulls the door shut behind him. 

With tears streaming in rivulets down his cheeks, Ghoul falls back on the mattress. His arms are wrapped around his middle in a futile attempt to keep himself from falling apart and he chokes out one last pitiful plea for Poison to return. “Come _back,_ please, baby, please—” Poison’ll never come back. Poison’ll never laugh with him again. “Poison, don’t leave me, come _BACK_ —” Poison’ll never sleep beside him again. Poison’ll never kiss him again. Poison’ll never tell him he loves—

He’s abruptly jarred out of one reality and into the next. 

His head is swimming, it’s dark, and it’s cold. His mind is fuzzy, his nose is running, and his stomach is sick. Someone’s talking to him. He’s sobbing. 

“Hey, babe. Hey, come on, Ghoul. Ghoulie, you’re okay. You’re okay. It’s a dream. It’s a dream.” 

That’s Party Poison’s voice. 

There’s a hand on his forehead. The palm is warm and the light pressure is comforting and it’s—it’s _Party Poison’s_ hand. Ghoul doesn’t get it. He left. Why is he back? When did he get back? Why does he care now?

“You’re safe, you’re okay. It was a dream.” 

_It was a dream._

It was just a dream. 

It didn’t happen. 

None of it was real. 

It was just a _dream._

Ghoul doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath and nearly gagging from lack of air until Poison’s voice shakes him out of it. “C’mon, breathe, babe. I’m here. Just breathe for me.” 

Ghoul does as encouraged and clutches at the wisps of breath keeping him just back from the edge of hyperventilation. “Are you—are you mad at me?" he gets out between stifled sobs. He has to check. The sting of what Poison said—of what _dream-Poison_ said—is still like a fresh cut in his heart. 

The real Poison's brows furrow and he stops rubbing Ghoul’s shoulder for a brief second. “No, I ain’t mad... why?” 

The atmosphere falls silent when Ghoul doesn’t answer, and his heart is pounding so hard he thinks that he could see it beating from beneath the skin if there was a light in the room. Ghoul sits up and clutches the blanket in one hand, trying to quell his crying and put himself back together. He doesn’t want Poison to have to take care of him all the time, not if he doesn’t want to. Maybe his dream was a premonition. Maybe Poison _is_ going to leave him. Maybe his dream self _did_ deserve it. 

“Nightmare,” he shoves out in a rush. He can’t compose himself, not when he looks at Poison and thinks that his dream could still very well come true one day. 

Poison doesn’t answer, just tilts his head the slightest bit to the left and waits for him to elaborate. Ghoul sucks in air and tries to explain. 

“I dreamed that you—you broke up with me. You said—you said—you said you didn’t love me anymore and that I was too—was too needy.” He hiccups once and tries to cover his face with his hands. He’s so embarrassed; he’s never completely lost control of himself like this before. Yeah, Poison’s the only one who’s seeing him, but he still feels humiliated. No other bad dream has ever affected him as strongly. 

“Aw, baby.” Sadness lingers in Poison’s eyes as he leans over and kisses Ghoul’s forehead. “I’m always gonna love you.” 

A sob catches in Ghoul’s throat. “But I w-was so upset, babe. You—you walked out and you didn’t answer me an-and—” 

He cuts himself off as Poison gently tugs his hands away from over his face and cups his jaw in his palms. “Listen,” he says softly. “It was just a dream. It doesn’t mean anything. I’m right here with you. And I swear to you, right now, that I’ll never leave you. Never, okay? I love you more than anything else in the world.” 

At that, Ghoul crumples into Poison’s arms. He cries into his shoulder, hands gripping the back of his t-shirt, and Poison just pats his back as he lets it all out. A flood of emotions rush out, sadness and anger and fear and who-knows-what-else all twisted together, and Poison just holds him. 

And at the heart of it all, that’s all he really wants. 

When Fun Ghoul’s all cried out, when his head feels like it’s filled with cotton and his nose is stuffed and his eyes are puffy, Poison lays him back down. He grabs their shared blanket before it falls all the way onto the ground and tucks it around Ghoul, then kisses him in the middle of his brow bone. It’s exactly what Ghoul does to Poison each night before bed, and having it done for him would be enough to make him sob again if his tear ducts had anything left to give. 

Poison settles down beside him so they’re facing each other, that imaginary gap in the middle of the mattress long gone. “I’ll never leave you,” Poison repeats, so softly that Ghoul doesn’t know if he’s meant to hear it or not. “I promise I’m always gonna be here when you wake up. Every time you have a nightmare, I’ll be here to comfort you. Whenever you get sick, I’ll take care of you. When you get hurt, I’ll do what I can to ease the pain. I’d take a million years of loneliness if it would save you from being sad. You’re one of the four people I live for now. I love you so much that I don’t know what I would do without you.”

He keeps talking, but before long, his voice soothes Ghoul into a strange state between wakefulness and sleep. He doesn’t hear all the words, the devotion, the trueness, the _love_ , but the simple sound of Poison’s voice is like a lullaby and it comforts Ghoul back into a place of tranquility and rest. 

And he doesn’t know this, but for as long as he lives, he’ll never have another nightmare with the same premise again. Poison will comfort him out of all his other bad dreams, but Fun Ghoul will never have to worry about another one in which they break up.

Poison never told a soul, kept it a secret until the day he died, but he knew how the Witch plays favorites and he knew that, for some godforsaken reason, he was one of those. And he never really wanted to believe in her, but special circumstances call for special solutions, after all. 

So all it took was a single well-worded prayer on his behalf, and he was able to protect his boyfriend from another nightmare like that one for the rest of eternity. 

**Author's Note:**

> sorry for 4k words of unnecessary pain. this was just an idea that i was like "eh" about at first, but then i decided to write it all to _ruin_ my friends. i think it worked. 👀
> 
> also, there's another reference to "the approaching curve" by rise against somewhere in the middle. i thought it fit pretty well so i just slipped it in there. also, there's technically an unintentional reference to "mr. brightside" by the killers, but i seriously didn't do that on purpose. 
> 
> thank you for reading, and leave a comment or kudos if you appreciated it! you can also find me on tumblr at discocritic.


End file.
